Past Wage Increases May Point To Higher Wages In The Future

Staff - August 21, 2018

In July, the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent while, in the same month, almost 157,000 new jobs were created. Together, these forces continue to tighten the job market as employers pull out all the stops to recruit and keep top talent—and that often includes upping the ante on salary.

A recent finder.com study crunched the numbers to determine the jobs with the highest potential for future wage increases based on rising salaries between 2016 and 2017. For distributors serving clients in these markets, this data may help start conversations about new promotional campaigns aimed at hiring and retaining employees and provides critical data for clients in these categories who exhibit at job fairs.

When comparing wage increases for men and women, research revealed that for the top 10 pay raises men still experience a seven percent higher wage increase than women, on average.

The top three careers with a high potential for pay raises for women are construction and extraction occupations (26 percent), meetings, convention, and event planners (25 percent) and insurance underwriters (23 percent).

Men working as surveying and mapping technicians lucked out with the highest pay raise increase for their occupation (41 percent). This is closely followed by bumps in paychecks for producers and directors (39 percent) and emergency medical technicians and paramedics (36 percent).

And there’s more good news for promotional products industry professionals: A number of the jobs with the highest potential for pay increases fall within the top industries that buy promotional products. In rank order according to PPAI’s 2017 Sales Volume Survey, those industries are: financial, health care, construction and entertainment.